The Texas Quarterback Rides Again

The State Has Generated a Fresh Crop of NFL Gunslingers

The Colts' Andrew Luck is one of three rookie quarterbacks to play high-school football in Texas, along with Robert Griffin III and Ryan Tannehill
Reuters

By

Kevin Clark

Nov. 6, 2012 10:42 p.m. ET

Despite all its Friday-night-lights bluster over the past few decades, the pigskin-worshipping state of Texas has an embarrassing football failing: Its quarterbacks have mostly flopped in the NFL.

There have been 34 players in the league's history to throw for 30,000 yards in their career. Just two of them are from Texas, Drew Brees and Y.A. Tittle. And Texas quarterback legends like Sammy Baugh and Bobby Layne are distant memories. Historically, the state has taken a back seat to California and even Pennsylvania when it comes to producing signal callers.

Through nine weeks of the NFL season however, a new class of NFL quarterbacks is quickly taking shape. Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck, Redskins star
Robert Griffin III
and Dolphins gunslinger Ryan Tannehill, all rookies, have all played like veterans. And they are all from Texas.

This season, 46% of the passing yards accumulated by players under age 26 have come from a quarterback who played their high school football in Texas. Aside from the stable of rookies, 25% of starting quarterbacks are from Texas, despite the fact that the state makes up 8% of the population and 11.8% of the NFL. That list includes Detroit's Matthew Stafford, Cincinnati's Andy Dalton and Minnesota's Christian Ponder.

This is not a coincidence. Coaches and players say it's part of a fundamental shift in the way football is now played in Texas. Here's what happened: Starting early last decade, seven-on-seven football leagues began to pop up in Texas. These leagues would operate in the off-season as a stripped-down version of the sport where the quarterback throws and throws and throws some more. The running game, and linemen, were basically nonexistent. The result was extra experience for the quarterback and little improvement for anyone else on the field. Because of this, Texas high schools began a shift away from the running, smash-mouth style they'd played in high school (formations such as the age-old Wing T offense) to a spread offense that's turned Texas quarterbacks into a phenomenon.

Eliot Allen, Luck's coach at Stratford High School in Houston, said seven-on-seven games tend to be played in a way that helps the quarterback develop. Typically, Allen said, defenses will be in a tight man-to-man coverage, with two safeties far back. This leaves the quarterback no choice but to learn how to throw into tight windows. The sheer volume of passes allows for quarterbacks to develop freakish accuracy, especially on crossing routes, Allen said.

This Texas-made accuracy on routes over the middle was on display Sunday when Luck set the NFL rookie record for passing yards in a game with 433 during his team's win over Miami. Take a 3rd-and-12 early in the first quarter, with Luck set in shotgun and five receivers. With heavy pressure from the Dolphins, Luck was able to scramble up to the line of scrimmage and find tight end Dwayne Allen, who was crossing the field and had slight separation from the defensive back. He caught the pass on the run and gained 22 yards on the throw. Allen said Luck didn't have the capability to throw to tight ends in Texas, so he couldn't fully reveal his accuracy until the NFL.

The Texas quarterbacks are adamant that they throw more than anyone else. Tannehill, a graduate of Big Spring High School in Big Spring, Texas, said that during the high school season he'd throw in organized activities six days a week. In the off-season that number would drop…to five days a week.

"Once you get into junior high, seven-on-seven passing leagues are such a big deal, so you're always playing, always throwing and having the ball in your hands and I think that's a big part of it," Tannehill said. "Throwing year-round, practices for seven-on-sevens in the summer and obviously into the season, I think it has a lot to do with the summer passing."

Tannehill said the continuous repetition is what forced him to develop good fundamentals, a well-developed throwing motion and footwork.

Jorvorskie Lane, a Dolphins fullback who grew up in Lufkin, Texas and went to Texas A&M, said the state's quarterbacks are helped by a machine-like process to create stars. "Basically, our high schools are run like a college program," Lane said. "It shows you that how they train translates to college and to the NFL…look at Matt Stafford, look at Tannehill, a rookie, Dalton last year. It speaks for itself."

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